A rambling of some thoughts regarding renewable energy, conservation and
energy production.
It will be a long post, I just have that feeling.
Now there is a few things that I may disagree with the vice president on,
but when he stated that "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue,
but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy"
I could not agree more. Some people will yell that conservation can reduce
energy consumption by x amount, but they are missing the entire point.
There is times when people are thinking on an entirely different level
when they make a comment, and the people that criticize the comment just
don't grasp what they are saying. If it's from an ingrained myopic view,
or just ignorance, is up for debate, but that is besides the point.
The point of his statement was that conservation, as it is today, is not
a viable bases for any energy policy. Or basically, conservation, as it's
practiced today, doesn't really help, in regards to energy demand. There
is lots of people that will cuss me out, and say I'm full of bull.$**T,
but they do not grasp the full picture, and the comments are beyond their
comprehension. It is something I realized years ago, when I seen the
practices used to promote energy efficiency. The way conservation is
practiced in today's world, it often ends up wasting more energy than it
saves. When it finally hit me is when I seen a bunch of electricians
changing out florescent ballast in an office building. I said to them,
"Didn't you just change them out two years ago?" The electrician said,
"Yes, but we have to change them again, to meet current efficiency
requirements." Two years previous, they had changed them to Mark3 energy
saver magnetic ballast. But that year, they removed the almost new
ballast, and put in electronic ballast. I done some figuring and come to
the remarkable conclusion that the forced change out of the ballast two
years ago, wasted vast amounts of energy, and was a very waste full
practice. They would of conserved energy if they would of left the old
ballast in for two more years "wasting energy" until they put in the
electronic ballast that year. The energy that the ballast saved those two
years, is less than the energy that it took to produce that ballast. So
all you did was relocate the energy use, and added a lot of waste.
Conserving is the last thing you did.
Relocating energy use, instead of true conservation is the majority of
stuff I see. It is like trying to grab an egg. If you try to hard, then
you will destroy what you are trying to get. If they try to hard to
achieve energy conservation, you will end up wasting more than you save.
The concept of forced change out, and replacing operational equipment
before it's useful life has come to an end, is fundamentally flawed.
Unless the savings in energy is phenomenal, then it is a total waste of
energy to change it out before it had finished it's service life. Once it
has finished it's service life, then you should upgrade to the newest,
most efficient system. The total environmental impact of replacing the
system will already be incurred, so that's the time to do it. If you
replace a $10,000 refrigeration system for a model that is 10% more
efficient, the monthly electrical cost is $500 a month, the service life
is 10 years, and the system is still within it's scheduled lifespan. then
you have just wasted energy. The accumulated energy impact for
replacement is $1000 a year. The energy saved is $600 a year. If you
change it with 5 years of life left, then you have thrown away $5000 worth
of energy, to save $3000, The replacement system will have to be replace 5
years earlier, so you won't make up that $2000 in wasted energy that was
wasted by changing it 5 years early.
You may ask, why am I measuring energy in dollars? Well.. Because that is
the most accurate way I can discern energy used to produce a product, and
keep it running. You may say, "Well not all of that money goes to buying
energy to make the product!" but that concept is slightly flawed. Yes,
there is a lot of profit. But profit will be spend on other stuff that
requires energy to make, so it all energy spent to get the product made,
and delivered to you. The delivery man gets a pay check from it, but that
pay check buys electricity for his house, fuel for his car, and gas to
keep his house warm in the winter. If a person makes more profit on an
item, then that means that he don't have to sell as many to stay in
business, which means that every item that he sells has a higher energy
tag to it, because the energy to keep the business running will remain
constant. The lights are still on, the trucks still make their routs, but
they just don't haul as many units. So the per unit energy tag is higher.
All in all, if you spend $100 on a product that will save $10 in energy
over it's life, compared to a $20 unit, then you have just wasted energy.
Because the $100 product has five times as mush energy overhead than the
$20 product. You have, in essence, wasted $70 dollars in energy. Yes, the
$20 product has 2 people producing it, and the $100 product still only has
two people producing it, and the actually energy used in making the
product, is the same, and they are producing the same number of unit's a
year, but the two people producing the $100 unit is using the extra
profits to pay 8 other people to take care of their privet yachts, so you
actually you have 5 times as much energy being used to support the
production of the $100 unit. If you take use that frame of mind to look at
the modern conservation concepts, then you realize how much of a fallacy
modern conservation is.
It makes the idea of forcing companies to spend large sums of money to
save a handful of power, look almost insane. You have all these big
companies pop up, to provide products to save energy, that the government
forces people to use, but the infrastructure that supports the companies
providing energy efficient products is consuming more energy than the
products are saving.
Maybe the reason why we are having these energy shortages is because of
everyone building all this stuff to save energy.
Like governments, and people changing out mercury vapor lights for metal
halide in an application where they don't really need true white light.
They say, "It may cost more over the long run with the more frequent bulb
changes, but the metal halide will only use half the power, so it will be
helping the environment." I say to myself, "you freaking ignorant piece of
#^*W$!!!!!!!!! The extra infrastructure required to change out the metal
halide bulbs more often, consumes more energy than the metal halide bulbs
save over mercury vapor." And thin they come out with a real wacko comment
along the lines of..."And the metal halide bulbs will be more friendly to
the environment, because they don't contain mercury, like the mercury
vapor bulbs do." Just because Metal halide bulbs don't have "mercury" in
their name, doesn't mean that they don't contain mercury, you freaking
imbecile!
All in all, government forced conservation, doesn't rank very highly on my
list. I think we have to much of it as is.
Energy conservation has it's place, but right now, most people don't seem
to realize where that place is.
The only real option we have, is to find ways to produce more energy. Be
it via nuclear fission/fusion, solar, geo, wind, hydro, bio, or fossil.
And with all ways of procuring energy, it takes energy to get energy. It
takes energy to build ships, drilling rigs, and equipment to hunt for oil.
It takes equipment to build a reactor. It takes energy to build a solar
panel. Like people saying, we shouldn't worry about the energy shortages,
we should just build PV panels. May I ask them this question.. Where do we
get the energy to build the solar panels. If a drilling rig has no gas to
run it's engine, then it can't drill to get the oil. The easiest way is to
use the fossil fuel, and nuclear industries to produce the power now. The
are already established, and the energy load that will be endured by using
them to meet the demand, will be minimal, compared to the alternatives.
And once you get enough excess energy into the system provided by those
methods, then you can use that extra energy to support the expansion of
the alternative energy sources.
A crystal growing plant, can't produce silicon crystal for PV panels, if
the coal fired power plant that powers it can't get enough coal to keep
the power on.
On that note, the ideas for a "solar breeder" is borderline stupid.
Oh.Look... The crystal growing plant is using power to run some crystal
growing furnaces. Whoopty do.. It's like using a solar panel to power an
exhaust fan on a factory, and calling it a solar powered factory. To have
a true "solar breeder" you would require all of the energy used in
producing the panels, to be provide by panels you produce. The crystal
growing operation needs to be powered by PV. All the energy for the homes
of the crystal growing factory workers needs to be powered by PV. The
vehicles that transport the workers to the factory needs to be powered by
PV. All the industries that support the workers (hospital, food,
consumables ..on and on) needs to be supported by PV. The infrastructure
for mining and purification of all the elements to supply the crystal
growing factory, their workers and related infrastructures, need to be
powered by PV. The factory that puts the cells into the panels, and it's
related infrastructures (metal foundries workers.. ec. ) need to be
powered by PV. The people, and companies that distribute, and install the
modules, need to be powered by PV. All the companies that build the
inverters, batteries, and equipment to use the panels, and their related
infrastructures, need to be powered by PV. And all the PV panels that
power all of the above, needs to be replicated by the entire system,
within the lifespan of the panels. That is why it is just easier to figure
that when the panel has paid for it's self in dollar terms, (in reference
to energy cost, at the date of it's production), then it is safe to say
that it has yielded a positive energy payback, and that it's production
has made a positive impact on the environment.
And, all that PV breeder stuff is missing the entire point that, it
doesn't mater if the energy is used to power the production process, or
not. As long as the panels are in use, then that is more conventional
energy that is free to go other places, or to be saved for a later date.
If the PV production plant has 100KW of PV to run it, but the homes around
it have to run off of a local power plant, or the homes have a distributed
100KW of PV, and the PV production plant runs off of the local power
station. What's the difference? It will still take 10 or more years to pay
back the energy it took the produce the panels. And for that 10 or so
years, producing PV will actually cause a net burden on the energy supply.
So, if we go crazy with production right now, we will need extra power
from other sources to hold us over for the 10 or so years until we finally
break even on production related energy burden, compared to the energy the
panels are producing in the field.
Take this formula based on an imaginary panel and community.
Existing community takes X watts per year.
Total cumulative energy usage producing a panel, will consume 1MW.
The panel will produce 100KW per year.
Total energy payback time is 10 years.
You start panel production in the community.
Panel production is 1000 unit's a year.
That will increase energy consumption of the community by 1GW per year for
the first year.
Second year, with one year's worth of units in operation, you will have a
net positive load of 900MW from the production.
Third year, 800MW.
Forth year, 700MW.
.......
........
Eleventh year, with ten years worth of units in the fields.
Or ten times the yearly production, then the units in the field will be
producing the same amount of energy as the PV production infrastructure is
consuming. From that point on, you have a positive energy benefit to the
community.
In 20 years, you will have a net zero energy budget, from the time the
factory started production. If the panel life is twice the energy payback
time, then the total community energy payback of the factory will be 2X
the payback of the panel, or the lifetime of the panel.
If the total life expectancy of the PV panels is 20 years, then you will
have to have a PV production industry with a power consumption that is
equal to the energy usage of the community that is being powered by Pv
production industry. Ten years worth of panels will be powering the PV
production system, while the other 10 years of panels will be powering the
community that is not related to the PV production system.
I guess it is a way to provide extra jobs. You will basically employ half
of the population in the PV industry to supply power to the other half of
the population.
The panels better have a life expectancy three or more times their payback
period, or half the US population is going to be working for something
that relates to the PV industry. Or we better find other sources of
energy like fusion, or something else with a quicker payback period.
Otherwise, the majority of the energy produced by the panels will be used
in making more panels.
Any way you go about it, if we want to get PV off the ground, we are going
to have to find an existing source of energy to get the PV production
system of the ground, and get it running. Otherwise, we will be the
operator setting at the controls of an oil drilling rig that has no gas to
run it's engine.
My opinion is that solar thermal will be a better choice for large scale
solar energy production. Energy payback is a lot quicker.
On hydrogen.
People say that it's not a useful energy source. I have to agree. No, it
is not a useful energy source, but it is critical as an energy transport
system. For years, the energy transport system, was the energy source it's
self. That being oil. But that will no longer apply. Just like electricity
is not a useful energy source. No, the world hasn't got one ounce of
useful energy from electricity. It is just a transport. It carries the
energy from a chemical reaction in a battery, to the circuitry in a radio.
It carries the energy from a steam turbine in the power plant to the
compressor shaft on your refrigerator. How would you like a drive shaft
running clear from the power plant to your fridge, to power the
compressor? Yes, hydrogen is not a very efficient transport system. The
same can be said for electricity, but it works.
It is also critical as energy storage. With all these non-reliable energy
sources, then you need a storage system that can hold large quantities of
energy to run us for many weeks, if the sun don't shine. And it has to be
loss free storage. Not like batteries that run down over a few month. You
put energy in a storage unit, and it has to be there three years from now.
A 30 to 50 percent loss in conversion is acceptable, but once you convert
it, it needs to be in a stable form. The energy has to be movable across
long distances with little to no loss. And the transport system should
require very little energy to operate. The transportation and storage
infrastructure equipment should have an achievable lifespan of many
decades. Movement of the energy to a car or other vehicle should be quick
and simple. With compressed and metallic storage systems, and pipelines,
Hydrogen meets those requirements. Batteries do not.
Without hydrogen, then nuclear power plants will be required indefinitely
as a power source during the nighttime, and any other time that the sun
doesn't shine. Without a system that we can stockpile massive quantities
of energy for a rainy day, month, year, then renewable energy will never
be able to exist as a stand alone power source. And it's most likely
partner will be nuclear power of some type.
And as far as conservation, yes, it will probably have it's place in
there, someplace. But, hopefully, it won't be the same concept of
conservation that they are pushing now. Hopefully, by that time, energy
conservation will actually achieve real reduction in energy required by
the world to operate.
N9WOS
